I.　We are in the process of being renewed to become the New Jerusalem—2 Cor. 4:16; Rev. 3:12; 21:2:

A.　God in His economy desires to produce a new creation out of the old creation; therefore, we need to be thoroughly and absolutely renewed so that we may be the new creation of God and for God—Gal. 6:15; 2 Cor. 5:17.

B.　To be renewed is to have God's element added into our being to replace and discharge our old element—Rom. 12:2:

1.　For all things to become new means that all things have become divine—2 Cor. 5:17.

2.　Since newness is God, to become new is to become God by having God wrought into us—Rom. 6:4; 7:6; Eph. 4:24.

3.　Our God, who is forever new and who never becomes old, infuses His ever-new essence into us to renew our entire being—Rom. 12:2; Col. 3:10.

C.　The Lord uses the environmental sufferings to consume, to kill, our outer man so that our inner man may be renewed—2 Cor. 4:16:

1.　All the sufferings God has assigned to us have one unique purpose—to renew us.

2.　The sufferings consume our outer man so that our inner man can be renewed with the supply of resurrection life—2 Cor. 4:10-12; 1:9.

3.　The sufferings we pass through are a process to transfer us from the realm of the old creation to the realm of the new creation to become the New Jerusalem—Col. 3:10; Rev. 21:2.

D.　We are renewed by the renewing capacity of the divine life in resurrection—John 11:25; 2 Cor. 1:9; 4:14; Phil. 3:10:

1.　To take the cross of Christ is a killing; however, this killing brings in resurrection, and in resurrection the divine life in us will carry out its renewing capacity—2 Cor. 4:10-12.

2.　Everything in our life must pass through the supreme test of death to make a way for the God of resurrection—1:9.

E.　The Spirit of God renews us by infusing our inward parts with God's attributes, which are forever new, can never become old, and are everlasting and unfading—Rev. 21:5.

F.　The mingled spirit—the renewing Spirit mingled with our regenerated spirit—is spreading into our mind to renew our entire being—Eph. 4:23.

II.　Transformation is the metabolic function of the life of God in us, by the addition of the element of the divine life of Christ into our entire being, that we may express the image of Christ outwardly—2 Cor. 3:18:

A.　Consummately, the image of Christ is the New Jerusalem, and to express the image of Christ is to express the New Jerusalem; therefore, transformation results in our becoming the New Jerusalem—Rev. 3:12; 21:2, 9-11.

B.　Transformation is a matter of inward metabolism issuing in an outward expression—Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18:

1.　Transformation is a metabolic change in the substantial form.

2.　Transformation is not an outward change; transformation is a divine metabolism, an inward process to transform us into different persons.

C.　Transformation is the working of the Triune God's attributes into the seeking believers to become their virtues—Eph. 4:24:

1.　In the process of transformation, we are transformed with the Triune God's attributes—cf. S. S. 2:10-11.

2.　Transformation is to transform God's attributes into our human virtues.

D.　Transformation is for the mass reproduction of the firstborn Son of God as the prototype of a God-man, that we may be shaped in the divine image to be just like the firstborn Son of God—Rom. 8:29:

1.　God transforms us with the life element of the firstborn Son of God, the first God-man, who passed through death and entered into resurrection, until we are transformed metabolically into His image from one degree of glory to a higher degree of glory—2 Cor. 3:18.

2.　When we are shaped into the divine image through transformation, we become the New Jerusalem—Rev. 21:9-11.

3.　The New Jerusalem is the mass reproduction of the firstborn Son of God; this is the highest purpose of God in His economy—Rom. 8:28-29:

a.　On the one hand, Christ has passed through the processes to become the firstborn Son of God with a view to become the prototype.

b.　On the other hand, God has brought us into the process of transformation that we may become the mass reproduction of the firstborn Son as the prototype to consummately become the New Jerusalem.

E.　What the Bible presents as its conclusion is jasper—the issue of the union of the processed and consummated Triune God and the transformed believers through the transforming Spirit—Rev. 21:11; 2 Cor. 3:18:

1.　God's purpose in creating the universe is to produce such jasper, and this is also what we care for.

2.　We are in the process of being made "a piece of God," to look the same as God—jasper—Rev. 4:2-3; 21:11.

3.　The ultimate purpose of God's salvation is to work on all those whom He chose in eternity to such an extent that they become wholly like Him in the divine glory to express the glorious image of God as jasper for His eternal enlargement and expression.